Joaquin Castro Expected to Seek Chairmanship of Powerful House Foreign Affairs Committee

U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, will this week announce he's vying to chair the House Foreign Affairs Committee, the Washington Post reports, citing congressional aides familiar with the effort.

The move would pit Castro, who currently chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, against senior members of the House for the role and potentially move the position into more progressive hands after years of control by hawkish Democratic U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, according to the Post.

Eliot, a 16-term incumbent who voted against President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran and backed the Iraq War, appears to have lost his primary against progressive Jamaal Bowman to represent New York’s 16th Congressional District.

“I believe our approach should be diplomacy first as a nation and that there’s an opportunity for the Foreign Affairs Committee to include voices that have been left out in the past and to cover topics that we’ve not always gotten around to,” Castro said in an Post interview.

Castro is far from a shoo-in for leadership of the powerful committee, however. The Post reports that Rep. Brad Sherman of California and Rep. Gregory W. Meeks of New York are the most likely contenders to succeed Engel.

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